Welding or grinding of metal using a machining center, milling machine or the like, often scatters spatter, grinding chips or coolant, and a dicing machine scatters chips of diced semiconductor wafer. The scattered matters when adhered on a bellows of the equipment or apparatus may pierce the bellows. The bellows may also be broken or pierced, if it repeats stretching and contraction as the machine tool or the like operates over a long period, while carrying the grinding chips or debris caught between the ridge parts of the bellows, and the grinding chips or the like may adhere onto a ball screw or other driving system disposed inside the bellows, to thereby interfere with accurate positioning. In order to resolve such nonconformities regarding piercing of the bellows body due to the grinding chips or the like, the present applicant has proposed a bellows with protective plate members, having a stretchable bellows body, and provided thereto protective plate members (slat or slats, referred to as slats or protective plate members, hereinafter) made of metal or resin (see Patent Literatures 1, 2). Each of these bellows disclosed in Patent Literatures 1, 2 has a bellows body having ridge parts and valley parts alternately formed therein, and being configured stretchable in the direction normal to the longitudinal direction of the ridge parts and the valley parts; a bellows supporting plate or a shape retaining plate which is provided inside the bellows body, and fixed typically by bringing the upper edge thereof into contact with the back face of each ridge part; and slats whose base ends are fixed in the vicinity of the individual ridge parts which configure the bellows body, and being opposed to the bellows supporting plate or the shape retaining plate, while holding the bellows body in between.
According to the bellows with protective plate members disclosed in Patent Literatures 1, 2, the risk of piercing of the bellows body is avoidable, as a result of provision of a large number of slats which protect the bellows body even when the grinding chips or debris of semiconductor wafer were scattered.